Friday, July 22, 2011

California prison officials and prison advocacy groups announcedThursday the end of a three-week hunger strike that saw thousands ofinmates at more than a dozen institutions refuse meals.

Dorsey Nunn, a mediator between the California Department ofCorrections and Rehabilitation and the striking prisoners, said hespoke with Pelican Bay State Prison inmates over the phone Thursdaywho confirmed the news.

"The choices they were confronted with were torture or death," Nunnsaid. "Those really aren't choices. I think they chose to live tofight (for) justice another day."

The strike began July 1 with 11 inmates in Pelican Bay State Prison'sSecure Housing Units, where suspected gang members are held in nearcomplete isolation, sometimes for years at a time. The group issued alist of five demands -- seeking better living conditions andtreatment -- and was quickly joined by more than 6,500 inmates in 13institutions throughout the state who began refusing meals.

According to CDCR Deputy Press Secretary Terry Thornton, the strikinginmates at Pelican Bay State Prison resumed eating state-issued foodWednesday night after a CDCR executive visited the prison andprovided clarification on proposed plans to review and changepolicies. Changes implemented to date, according to the release,include "providing cold-weather caps, wall calendars and someeducational opportunities for SHU inmates."

Only one of the proposed allowances -- the wall calendars -- wasincluded in a list of prisoners' "core demands." Even then, wallcalendars were just one of a long list of items listed under thelarger topic of expanding programming and privileges for SHU inmates.

Regardless of how the strike ended, it was designed to raiseawareness and further inmates' goals of receiving better treatment,said Molly Porzig, a member of the advocacy group Critical Resistanceand the Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition.

"What we're supporting is prisoners winning their demands," she said."The goal of this wasn't having people starve -- it was having theCDCR meet these very basic demands."

The core of those demands were aimed at addressing SHU housing, whichessentially amounts to long-term solitary confinement. Prisoneradvocates equate it to torture.

In the SHU, inmates are kept in small soundproof, windowless cellsfor more than 23 hours a day, according to advocacy groups. They arefed through a slot in the cell door, with their only contact with theoutside world coming when the are allowed, alone, out into a smallenclosed yard.

"I think these basic conditions amount to torture," said JessicaWhatcott, a volunteer with the Arcata advocacy group Bar None. "Itdeprives them of all human contact and sunlight."

Sometimes kept in the SHU for years at a time, inmates are onlyreleased back to the general population after going through anintense "debriefing" process, according to Whatcott. "Debriefing,"Whatcott said, essentially requires prisoners to provide informationabout the gang ties of fellow inmates in exchange for their releasefrom SHU housing.

"In other areas of prisons, if you serve good time or follow all therules, you can move into areas with more privileges," Whatcott said."There is no opportunity for that in the SHU. You only leave throughsnitching or dying."

For the duration of the strike, the fasting prisoners have beenmonitored by the Federal Health Care Prison Receiver's Office, which-- based on the order of a federal judge -- oversees medical care inCalifornia prisons. Nancy Kincaid, a spokeswoman for the office,stressed that the office is entirely independent of the CaliforniaDepartment of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

"The health care is under the supervision of a federal receiver," shesaid. "He's not going to lie, and he can't violate a federal court order."

Kincaid said 6,600 prisoners across 13 institutions were fasting --or had officially refused three consecutive meals -- at the strike'sheight in the beginning of the month. However, Kincaid said thenumber dropped down to about 1,500 inmates within about five days.

Wednesday afternoon, Kincaid said, her office was aware of about 755striking inmates but cautioned the numbers were very fluid, with someinmates going on and off the strike and others refusing state-issuedmeals while eating other food in their cells.

A total of 17 inmates at Pelican Bay were transferred to CorcoranState Prison because they lost more than 8 pounds during the strikeand had underlying medical conditions that posed concerns, Kincaidsaid, adding that Corcoran has a general acute care hospital on itsgrounds while Pelican Bay does not.

"There were three members of that group who really exhibited moresevere symptoms of starvation -- one lost 27 pounds," Kincaid said,adding that some agreed to receive intravenous fluids and nutritionalsupplements under a physician's care.

Contrary to some media reports, Kincaid said, no inmates were treatedat outside hospitals, suffered renal failure or had any extremesevere reactions during the fast.

Moving forward, Kincaid said, inmates who haven't taken meals inweeks will have to be slowly reintroduced to solid foods undermedical supervision.

"You can't just sit down to a plate of food after you haven't eatenin three weeks," she said. "Doctors are working with inmates now totransfer them back to regular feedings, but some will take about twoweeks of monitoring."

The CDCR issued a press release announcing the end of the strike lateThursday morning that decried hunger strikes as "dangerous andineffective." In the wake of the announcement, advocacy groups saidthey wouldn't believe the news until hearing it from the involvedinmates or the attorneys representing them.

According to Ron Ahnen, president of California Prison Focus, CDCRofficials have repeatedly failed to provide accurate informationabout the hunger strike.

"The CDCR has demonstrated that they do not know how to tell thetruth," Ahnen said, charging that prison officials underreported thenumber of prisoners participating in the strike's first days andfalsely claimed some were refusing medical treatment.

After speaking with advocacy groups, the Times-Standards contactedofficials with the CDCR for an official comment beyond the pressreleased issued earlier in the day.

"You know how you can tell a hunger strike is over?" CaliforniaDepartment of Corrections and Rehabilitation Deputy Press SecretaryTerry Thornton asked. "It's when they start eating."

Although Ahnen was able to confirm that the strike had ended, he saidthe fight isn't over.

"What they (the CDCR) did is make a bunch of promises about what theyare going to look at," Ahnen said. "Now we just need to hold them totheir word."

Despite the fact that the CDCR has not yet met the list of coredemands made by the prisoners, Nunn said the striking inmates feelgood about what they accomplished.

"They organized across every racial and geographic group in the areaand the nation," Nunn said. "They carried the strike out for 20 days."

More importantly, he said, the prisoners were able to capture theattention of the world.

"The difference between this hunger strike and the one in 2002 isthat people all around the world have started looking at what isgoing on in Pelican Bay," he said.

The most important thing people can do now is to follow up, saidNunn, who was incarcerated from 1971 to 1982 in San Quentin prisonand is now the executive director of Legal Services for Prisonerswith Children.

"There were a lot of people concerned," he said, "They need tocontinue to be concerned, the prisoners are counting on them to be concerned."

"The purpose of the Hunger Strike is to combat both the Ad-Seg/SHUpsychological and physical torture, as well as the justificationsused of support treatment of the type that lends to prisoners beingsubjected to a civil death. Those subjected to indeterminate SHUprograms are neglected and deprived of the basic human necessitieswhile withering away in a very isolated and hostile environment."

Written by Mutope Duguma (s/n James Crawford), a Pelican Bay StatePrison inmate in the Security Housing Unit, or SHU, and Pelican Bayhunger strike participant.

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